"The first obvious sign that a worldwide flood occurred is that there would be thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions of dead creatures buried underneath the surface of the earth. When we look at Geology, guess what? This is exactly what we find: thousands upon thousands and millions upon millions of creatures buried beneath the earth. Unfortunately, before secular humanists got their hands on the fossil record, creationists were poorly interpreting the fossils that were buried underground, which paved the way for secular scientists popularizing more scientific interpretations of the fossils. Today, creationists fight to set the record straight despite the fact that their interpretations are more reasonable and more logical than that of secularists."

Replies to This Discussion

As an abstract being in the mind of monkeys, this is about right, but resorting to the 'irrestable force meets X' relys upon an assertion that such a force exists to start with. Theists just muddled the issue again. Must be nice to always have a ready made number of 'excape cards'. The 'excape cards' are only immagined also, since they exist, not to win an argument, but to delay the final result, 'the god hypothesis is crap!'

Yes. It is a very convenient out. God become like magic duct tape, able to patch up any argument (in the mind of the theist, that is) that he or she can't find a solution to when faced with a real argument.

(Damnit, I was almost through typing something really good and suddenly I fat fingered something and Google started loading--bye bye, masterful prose....)

My goal talking to theists who claim to have rational reasons to believe is precisely TO force them to pull the faith card. At that point they are forced to realize (especially after I rub their noses in the steaming pile they just dropped) that ultimately there is no rational argument for their position. They may then make the claim that no position, including mine (atheism takes faith that there is no doG, don'tcha know) can be rationally justified, but my point--that they have no rational basis--is still made.

Does that stop them from repeating the same line about having rational reasons to believe, on the next non-believer conversion prospect they run into? Nope, most Xians in apologetic mode are willing to repeat arguments they've been forced to concede are wrong; it's the Xian version of taqiyya. Saving the soul they are talking to is of overriding importance (and given their [very faulty!!!] premises, honestly, I can't blame them for thinking like that).

(Another fun one is getting them to concede that their notions of absolute morality is ultimately based on their subjective choice of which doG to believe in. Usually they spot that trap before I can quite close it on them but their flight reflex is fun to watch. And if they are honest with themselves, they might figure something out when they think about it later.)

Did anyone mention the concept that watercraft date back to the neolithic period (around 10,000 years ago). So to quote Joe Rogan on the subject of Noah, "All those other people with boats, their shit didn't work."

Surely humans at the time were not all duds. Could it be that the Flood Story was a attempt to reverse the theist sense that they were losing in the market of public opinion, of their day?

'See our guy can build a BOAT, fill it with animals, and save the WORLD! We spit on the rest of you!' Just over the mountain from there the locals can't see what all the fus is about. Was the story only ment for a easily impressed few? 'N' years latter we are stuck with a failed editing job?

I've just received a new email from Bill Seng, the main Christian commentor on the World Wide Flood blog, directing me to a section of what I've already characterized as the Confirmation Bias capitol of the world, Answers In Genesis. On this site, the author, Matt McClellen, has written an article, "Abraham and the Chronology of Ancient Mesopotamia." In his article, McClellen presents a table, which I won't bother to reproduce here, entitled, "Traditional Chronology of Ancient Mesopotamia," beginning with the Hassunah Period, 5800-5500 BCE, all the way down to the First Dynasty of Babylon (Hammurabi), 1895-1594 BCE.

This table has been produced by an actual Mesopotamian historian, Alfred J. Hoerth, Director of Archaeology Emeritus at Wheaton College, who, in the field of Biblical archaeology (about which, he has written several books), takes a maximalist view of the Bible vs history - that is to say, he tends to accept the Bible as historical, then sets out to prove it, a Confirmation Bias point of view, one would think. Below the table, presented on AiG, he even lists his book title, publication date and page number data:

Bear in mind, this table is being used by Mr. McClellan as evidence for his claims, but he still isn't satisfied with this biblical maximalist's point of view, as evidenced by the disclaimer he feels he needs to make before presenting you with Hoerth's table:

"A Bible-believing Christian will, of course, reject the dating of the oldest periods but, as mentioned in the introduction, this paper will not discuss these older periods as it will be shown below that they will have no effect on how we date Abraham."